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I love Reading Course Lecture. For the sole reason that the professor is brilliant and comes from New Zealand and has this weird sort of humour and his lecture is worth getting up an hour early. I took RCL all three semesters so far (Poetry, Prose, Drama - gotta collect 'em all). This term it's about drama. Up today: King Lear.
Jackson-sensei explained that many critics think that King Lear is Shakespeare's Best Play Ever (and he said maybe next week he dares to explain why). I'd have to agree, but of course, I haven't read all Shakespeare's works, and besides, my love for King Lear may just come from the time I saw it performed.
When we were in Britain in grade 13, one day we visited London, and because - of course - we had to read Shakespeare in class, we visited the rebuilt Globe Theatre.
I loved it at once. It is built just as the original Globe - octagonal, with a courtyard in the middle and the stage on one side, with trap doors above the stage and in its middle (pathways to Heaven and Hell), without curtains. The walls were decorated with bundles of corn and fruits and onions (it was September), which, as we were told, was against the stench in Shakespeare's time, while now it was for decoration only.
We were led through the Globe by an actor who was playing a role in "that Scottish play about the thane who kills the king to become king" (apparently there's some kind of superstition about "Macbeth": if you say the play's name before it has been performed, something terrible will happen). The building itself was beautiful, and even though it wasn't really that old, it breathed history.
The actor also explained how Shakespeare worked out a setting in the first lines of the play (in cases less obvious then "in fair Verona, where we lay our stage") because, after all, there was no stage scenery or lighting in the Elizabethan age. He had two boys perform the beginning of Hamlet to illustrate his point and showed how you could realize it was night and they were soldiers on watch and familiar and in some foreign kingdom just by what they said. Fascinating.
But King Lear. When it was time to explore the rest of London, my friend Isabel, our teacher Mrs Pirags and myself couldn't resist the temptation of watching a play at the Globe. "That Scottish play" was performed in the evening, by which time we had to be on our way back to Hastings, but King Lear was on in half an hour. We all had been to London previously and were sure to survive not seeing the must-sees again. Isabel and I took tickets of the second cheapest category (the cheapest was "groundling", which means you get to stand in the courtyard), Mrs Pirags a more expensive one, and there we were. Octagonal theatre, only marginally roofed. Broad daylight. A bit of drizzle (but well, we had a roof, unlike the poor groundlings...). No stage decorations except for the pillars that carry the roof, and the occasional table or chair.
It was fantastic. I had seen several plays and operas performed even then, but none of them had been so breathtakingly exciting. During the intermission, we just couldn't wait for the play to go on. Mrs Pirags left her expensive balcony seat and went to the groundlings just to be closer to the happening. We got so carried away. The atmosphere was incredible, the actors were excellent, and the story is just damn good. It was over much too soon, and it was all we could do not to buy tickets for that Scottish play. Shakespeare can be SO addictive.
(We had quite an adventurous time in London afterwards, and during this week in general, but that's a different story to be told at another time.)
So there's no need to convinve me that King Lear's great. I know it is. As Frankie McCourt would've said, "It's like having jewels in your mouth speaking the words."
...bids the wind blow the earth into the sea/ or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,/ that things might change or cease...
- - -
( Ich liebe Eure Hoheit/ wie es mein Bund verlangt; nicht weniger noch mehr... )
- - -
Jackson-sensei explained that many critics think that King Lear is Shakespeare's Best Play Ever (and he said maybe next week he dares to explain why). I'd have to agree, but of course, I haven't read all Shakespeare's works, and besides, my love for King Lear may just come from the time I saw it performed.
When we were in Britain in grade 13, one day we visited London, and because - of course - we had to read Shakespeare in class, we visited the rebuilt Globe Theatre.
I loved it at once. It is built just as the original Globe - octagonal, with a courtyard in the middle and the stage on one side, with trap doors above the stage and in its middle (pathways to Heaven and Hell), without curtains. The walls were decorated with bundles of corn and fruits and onions (it was September), which, as we were told, was against the stench in Shakespeare's time, while now it was for decoration only.
We were led through the Globe by an actor who was playing a role in "that Scottish play about the thane who kills the king to become king" (apparently there's some kind of superstition about "Macbeth": if you say the play's name before it has been performed, something terrible will happen). The building itself was beautiful, and even though it wasn't really that old, it breathed history.
The actor also explained how Shakespeare worked out a setting in the first lines of the play (in cases less obvious then "in fair Verona, where we lay our stage") because, after all, there was no stage scenery or lighting in the Elizabethan age. He had two boys perform the beginning of Hamlet to illustrate his point and showed how you could realize it was night and they were soldiers on watch and familiar and in some foreign kingdom just by what they said. Fascinating.
But King Lear. When it was time to explore the rest of London, my friend Isabel, our teacher Mrs Pirags and myself couldn't resist the temptation of watching a play at the Globe. "That Scottish play" was performed in the evening, by which time we had to be on our way back to Hastings, but King Lear was on in half an hour. We all had been to London previously and were sure to survive not seeing the must-sees again. Isabel and I took tickets of the second cheapest category (the cheapest was "groundling", which means you get to stand in the courtyard), Mrs Pirags a more expensive one, and there we were. Octagonal theatre, only marginally roofed. Broad daylight. A bit of drizzle (but well, we had a roof, unlike the poor groundlings...). No stage decorations except for the pillars that carry the roof, and the occasional table or chair.
It was fantastic. I had seen several plays and operas performed even then, but none of them had been so breathtakingly exciting. During the intermission, we just couldn't wait for the play to go on. Mrs Pirags left her expensive balcony seat and went to the groundlings just to be closer to the happening. We got so carried away. The atmosphere was incredible, the actors were excellent, and the story is just damn good. It was over much too soon, and it was all we could do not to buy tickets for that Scottish play. Shakespeare can be SO addictive.
(We had quite an adventurous time in London afterwards, and during this week in general, but that's a different story to be told at another time.)
So there's no need to convinve me that King Lear's great. I know it is. As Frankie McCourt would've said, "It's like having jewels in your mouth speaking the words."
...bids the wind blow the earth into the sea/ or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,/ that things might change or cease...
- - -
( Ich liebe Eure Hoheit/ wie es mein Bund verlangt; nicht weniger noch mehr... )
- - -
